It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.

I kept the squats pretty light in order to have some energy for the deadlift.

Deadlift 295x1, 365x1, 435x1, 485x1, 525 x fail x 2, 515x1 (PR)

I was supposed to hit 525 and attempted it twice. First time wasn't even close, second time the bar stalled out around mid-shin. By this time I was pretty tired, but I wanted to set at least a symbolic PR for the year, so I tried 515 and it went up. My deadlift training has been spotty this year, so any increase is good, I guess.

Hip thrust 2s x 5 warmup, then three work sets of 5 - still trying to figure out the right weight and form here.

Squats felt strong, so I went ahead with the planned progression on the last set. But then my back was tired for deadlifts and the three heavy-ish singles felt really hard. Next week I'll probably only do 455x3 on the last squat set because the deadlift schedule calls for a modest max-out (planning to do 525).

Hip thrust 5x5, 2 warmup sets and 3 working sets. These feel good after the squatting and pulling.

Chest-supported DB row 4s x 8-10

Bodyweight today (and last week) was around 215, which is the lowest it's been in a while.

Left hip feels jacked up again. I tried foam rolling and it helped a bit, but I no longer believe it's just the IT band. Plague is in mild remission. Still, squatting went okay and there was no pain during the deadlifts.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

I've come down with what feels like the plague. Was still able to lift, but energy levels were down and people at the gym were giving me the evil eye when I would sneeze or blow my nose. I made sure I wiped everything down after I was done using it, so maybe that helped.

Spotter had to intervene. The weight crushed me like a ton of bricks coming down, but came up nicely from the bottom and only stalled about halfway up. Was super tired from the previous single too, felt like my entire upper body had cramped up.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Went pretty light today and cut out the paused bench press because I'll try to max out later this week. Everything felt good, but I did notice a few niggling shoulder and elbow pains. Hopefully these will be gone by Friday.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Today my left hip started hurting for no particular reason, a sharp stabbing pain like someone knifing me way inside the hip. At some point it got so bad I had to walk funny (or funnier than usual).

I've had this kind of pain before (the first time it happened I thought I'd torn something in my hip) and I was pretty sure I knew how to get rid of it, so I foam rolled my left IT band when I got home and found incredibly tight and painful trigger points. I can't get to the gym tomorrow and will be out of town for the weekend, so I went ahead and squatted anyway.

The pain got a lot better, but didn't go away by the time I started squatting. I couldn't push my knees out far enough when squatting, because as soon as I passed a certain depth my hip would seize up. So I had to squat with my knees more forward than usual. Still decided to go through with the planned workout, depth might have been iffy on a couple of reps but the weight was relatively light so I didn't think this was a big deal.